Science Can Now Tell What Songs You’ve Listened to Just by Recording Brain Activity – and Here’s the First Song…
It’s almost akin to mind-reading: scientists can now recreate songs individuals are tuned into simply by analyzing their brain activity.
A team headed by Ludovic Bellier from the University of California, Berkeley, US, has successfully shown that it’s possible to reproduce recognizable renditions of iconic Pink Floyd tunes using brain data recorded while subjects heard the music.
The findings, released today in the PLOS Biology journal, utilized advanced modeling techniques to interpret brain signals and reproduce the track, “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 1”.
Innovative encoding methods also pinpointed a previously unidentified cortical area in the temporal lobe associated with perceiving rhythm, offering potential benefits for next-gen brain-machine tools.
While earlier studies confirmed that computer-based models could interpret and reproduce speech, there wasn’t an existing model for musical components, including pitch, melody, harmony, and rhythm, in combination with the diverse brain areas responsible for processing sound.
The Berkeley group overcame this gap by applying intricate decoding methods to brain data gathered from 2,668 electrodes placed directly on the brains of 29 participants as they enjoyed classic rock tunes. Of these, 347 electrodes, predominantly in three brain regions: Superior Temporal Gyrus (STG), Sensory-Motor Cortex (SMC), and Inferior Frontal Gyrus (IFG), exhibited distinct activity linked to the musical tracks.
A detailed examination of musical components highlighted a distinct area within the STG associated with the rhythm, specifically the guitar beat of rock songs. To understand the significance of specific regions and musical components, the researchers compared song reproductions with the original track after selectively removing different data.
The results showed that when data from the right STG was excluded, it most notably influenced the quality of the reproductions. Furthermore, omitting data related to the commencement of sound or rhythm resulted in decreased reproduction accuracy, highlighting their vital role in music understanding.
Such discoveries might be instrumental in advancing brain-machine tools, potentially aiding in refining the comprehension of speech patterns and melodies.
In Bellier’s words, “We reconstructed the classic Pink Floyd song Another Brick in the Wall from direct human cortical recordings, providing insights into the neural bases of music perception and into future brain decoding applications.”
Image Credit: Getty